sword at Kjartan’s men. “Every last one of the bastards has to die, so go out and kill them!”
Ragnar struck then and there was the hammer of shield on shield, the clangor of swords and the scream of men and horses. Kjartan’s men were scattering and some, despairing of making an escape eastward, were galloping to the west. I looked at the men in the gateway, “Rypere! Clapa! I want those men stopped!”
Clapa and Rypere were staring at me as though I were a ghost, which I suppose I was in a way. I was glad Clapa was still with Guthred, for Clapa was a Dane and that suggested Guthred could still command some Danish allegiance. “Clapa! You earsling!” I yelled. “Stop dawdling like a boiled egg. Get on a horse and fight!”
“Yes, lord!”
I rode closer still until I was staring down at Guthred. There was a fight going on behind me and Guthred’s men, stirred from their torpor, were hurrying to join the slaughter, but Guthred had no eyes for the battle. He just stared up at me. There were priests behind him and Gisela was beside him, but I looked only into Guthred’s eyes and saw the fear there. “Remember me?” I asked coldly.
He had no words.
“You would do well,” I said, “to set a kingly example and kill a few men right now. You have a horse?”
He nodded and still could not speak.
“Then get on your horse,” I said curtly, “and fight.”
Guthred nodded and took one backward pace, but though his servant led a horse forward Guthred did not mount. I looked at Gisela then and she looked back and I thought her eyes could light a fire. I wanted to speak, but it was my turn to have no words. A priest plucked at her shoulder as if summoning her away from the fighting, but I twitched Serpent-Breath’s bloody blade toward the man and he went very still. I looked back at Gisela and it seemed as if I had no breath, as if the world stood still. A gust of wind lifted a wisp of black hair showing beneath her bonnet. She brushed it away, then smiled. “Uhtred,” she said, as though saying the name for the very first time.
“Gisela,” I managed to speak.
“I knew you’d come back,” she said.
“I thought you were going to fight,” I snarled at Guthred and he ran off like a whipped dog.
“Do you have a horse?” I asked Gisela.
“No.”
“You!” I shouted at a boy gawping at me. “Fetch me that horse!” I pointed to the stallion of the man I had injured in the face. That man was now dead, killed by Guthred’s men as they joined the fight.
The boy brought me the stallion and Gisela scrambled into its saddle, hoisting her skirts inelegantly around her thighs. She pushed her muddy shoes into the stirrups then held out a hand to touch my cheek. “You’re thinner,” she said.
“So are you.”
“I have not been happy,” she said, “since the moment you left.” She kept her hand on my cheek for a heartbeat, then impulsively took it away and tore off the linen bonnet and unpinned her black hair so that it fell around her shoulders like the hair of an unwed girl. “I’m not married,” she said, “not properly married.”
“Not yet,” I said, and my heart was so full of joy. I could not take my eyes from her. I was with her again and the months of slavery dropped away as though they had never happened.
“Have you killed enough men yet?” she asked mischievously.
“No.”
So we rode toward the slaughter.
You cannot kill everyone in an enemy army. Or rarely. Whenever the poets sing a tale of battle they always insist that no enemy escapes unless the poet himself happens to be part of the fight when he alone escapes. It is strange that. Poets always live while everyone else dies, but what do poets know? I have never seen a poet in a shield wall. Yet, outside Cetreht, we must have killed over fifty of Kjartan’s men, and then everything became chaotic because Guthred’s men could not tell the difference between Kjartan’s followers and Ragnar’s Danes, and so some of the enemy escaped as we pulled warriors apart. Finan, attacked by two of Guthred’s household troops, had killed both of them and, when I found him, he was about to attack a third. “He’s on our side,” I shouted to Finan.
“He looks like a rat,” Finan snarled.
“His name,” I said, “is Sihtric, and he once swore me an oath of loyalty.”
“Still looks like a rat, he does.”
“Are you on our side?” I called to Sihtric, “or did you rejoin your father’s troops?”
“Lord, lord!” Sihtric came running to me and fell to his knees in the trampled mud beside my horse. “I’m still your man, lord.”
“You didn’t take an oath to Guthred?”
“He never asked me, lord.”
“But you served him? You didn’t run back to Dunholm?”
“No, lord! I stayed with the king.”
“He did,” Gisela confirmed.
I gave Serpent-Breath to Gisela, then reached down and took Sihtric’s hand. “So you’re still my man?”
“Of course, lord.” He was clutching my hand, gazing at me with disbelief.
“You’re not much use, are you,” I said, “if you can’t beat a skinny Irishman like him?”
“He’s quick, lord,” Sihtric said.
“So teach him your tricks,” I told Finan, then I patted Sihtric’s cheek. “It’s good to see you, Sihtric.”
Ragnar had two prisoners and Sihtric recognized the taller of the two. “His name is Hogga,” he told me.
“He’s a dead Hogga now,” I said. I knew Ragnar would not let any of Kjartan’s men survive while Kjartan himself lived. This was the bloodfeud. This was hatred. This was the start of Ragnar’s revenge for his father’s death, but for the moment Hogga and his shorter companion evidently believed they would live. They were talking avidly, describing how Kjartan had close to two hundred men in Dunholm. They said Kjartan had sent a large war- band to support Ivarr, while the rest of his men had followed Rolf to this bloody field by Cetreht.
“Why didn’t Kjartan bring all his men here?” Ragnar wanted to know.
“He won’t leave Dunholm, lord, in case ?lfric of Bebbanburg attacks when he’s gone.”
“Has ?lfric threatened to do that?” I asked.
“I don’t know, lord,” Hogga said.
It would be unlike my uncle to risk an attack on Dunholm, though perhaps he would lead men to rescue Guthred if he knew where Guthred was. My uncle wanted the saint’s corpse and he wanted Gisela, but my guess was that he would risk little to get those two things. He would certainly not risk Bebbanburg itself, any more than Kjartan would risk Dunholm.
“And Thyra Ragnarsdottir?” Ragnar resumed his questioning. “Does she live?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Does she live happily?” Ragnar asked harshly.
They hesitated, then Hogga grimaced. “She is mad, lord.” He spoke in a low voice. “She is quite mad.”
Ragnar stared at the two men. They became uncomfortable under his gaze, but then Ragnar looked up at the sky where a buzzard floated down from the western hills. “Tell me,” he said, and his voice was suddenly low, almost easy, “how long have you served Kjartan?”
“Eight years, lord,” Hogga said.
“Seven years, lord,” the other man said.
“So you both served him,” Ragnar said, still speaking softly, “before he fortified Dunholm?”
“Yes, lord.”
“And you both served him,” Ragnar went on, his voice harsh now, “when he took men to Synningthwait and burned my father’s hall. When he took my sister as his son’s whore. When he killed my mother and my father.”
Neither man answered. The shorter of the two was shaking. Hogga looked around as if to find a way to escape, but he was surrounded by mounted sword-Danes, then he flinched as Ragnar drew Heart-Breaker.
“No, lord,” Hogga said.
“Yes,” Ragnar said and his face twisted with anger as he chopped down. He had to dismount to finish the job. He killed both men, and he hacked at their fallen bodies in fury. I watched, then turned to see Gisela’s face. It
